Former Iraq Commander: Bernard Kerik was 'a waste of time' in Iraq

By Stephanie Gaskell

Daily News Staff Writer|

May 05, 2008 | 12:02 AM

The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq took aim at Bernard Kerik in an exclusive interview with the Daily News Sunday, calling his efforts to train Iraqi police in 2003 "a waste of time and effort."

Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top military leader in Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004, blasted the former police commissioner for failing to produce results while Kerik was the interim minister of interior in 2003.

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"I would be hard-pressed to identify a major national-level success that his organization accomplished in that time," Sanchez told The News a day before his new memoir, "Wiser in Battle" hits bookstores nationwide.

"He is a very energetic guy. He is very confident - overconfident to an extent - and he is very superficial in his understanding of the requirements of his job," Sanchez said. "His whole contribution was a waste of time and effort."

Sanchez, who was in charge during Saddam Hussein's capture and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, said Kerik put U.S. soldiers in danger many times by not telling the Army about his police operations.

"I went to see Kerik and asked him to knock it off," Sanchez writes. "'You're going to wind up in a firefight with our soldiers,' I said. 'We've got troops patrolling the neighborhoods, and if they see a group of unknown armed Iraqis show up, they're going to engage.'"

Sanchez said Kerik focused more on "conducting raids and liberating prostitutes" than training the Iraqis.

"They'd get tips and they'd go and actually raid a whorehouse," Sanchez told The News. "Their focus becomes trying to do tactical police operations in the city of Baghdad, when in fact there is a much greater mission that they should be doing, which is training the police."

Sanchez said Kerik resisted communicating with Army leaders because of "a territorial issue."

"I think it's just an attitude that it's their responsibility and they don't want us meddling in it," he told The News.

Sanchez said when Kerik left Iraq, after just 90 days, he checked the Interior Ministry's inventory to see what equipment was bought for the Iraqi police. Sanchez said he was "shocked" to find out that the only thing on the books was 50,000 Glock pistols.

"When I was informed of the exorbitant prices that were being paid for these pistols, my first reaction was that there had to be some impropriety, but I had no evidence to substantiate it," he wrote.

Sanchez also told The News that he was "flabbergasted" when he heard that Kerik was nominated secretary of Homeland Security. The nomination was dropped days later, after Kerik admitted to hiring an undocumented nanny, and in November he was indicted for bribery and tax evasion.

Kerik disputed the allegations about his performance in Iraq - and said Sanchez was part of the problem.

"Personally, I wasn't a big fan of Gen. Sanchez because he had no respect for the Iraqi police who were courageous enough to return to work when others fled," Kerik told The News. "He refused to see them as partners in combating the war-torn violence that was crippling Iraq, and as a result, there was constant strife."

"The U.S. military police and coalition troops on the ground worked great with the Iraqis," he said. "It's too bad they didn't have that same relationship at the top."

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Kerik denied arresting any prostitutes in Iraq and said the Army always knew about his operations.

"If we didn't notify them it's because they were involved in the operation," he said.